


Time and Turn

by NuMo



Series: Chrysalis [1]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen, Probably jossed come April, because that's far too long to wait, but I so do not care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 02:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 12,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sort of s4ep10.1 of “Warehouse 13 of NuMo’s little corner of the universe”. </p><p>Spoilers for the real s4ep10 – in fact, things probably don’t make sense if you haven’t seen at least season 4, if not all of them.</p><p>---</p><p>So join me for an episode which has women cupping cheeks, familiar tentative sideways glances, mentions of Berlin and Dresden and Germans zooming around in fast cars - oh yeah, and time travel too, but probably not the way you’d pictured it. </p><p>(I’m no good at summaries.)</p><p>WH13 and its characters don’t belong to me, I’m just playing and I promise I’ll return them when I’m done. I do own my own characters, and, as always, I love me some feedback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teaser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is, alas, unbeta-ed. I hope that the way the story hops forth and back works nevertheless, if not, please don’t hesitate to point it out to me.

Black smoke coming out of a patently not burning building was never a good omen. Helena took the stairs two at a time, finally bursting in on – Claudia, hovering over Arthur Nielsen. Pete, prone on the floor. Myka- “What happened?” she shot.

“Helena!” The tall agent whirled around. Then her eyes widened even more. “Mrs. Frederic!”

“Agent Wells.” Coming up the stairs behind Helena with a stranger in tow, the Warehouse’s caretaker said gravely, “it appears we are too late.”

“Helena…” Myka repeated, shuddering weakly and coughing once. Then she shook herself more deliberately and turned again. “I need some help here,” she threw over her shoulder as she knelt down next to where Claudia was frantically trying to stop the bleeding, adding her own capable hands to the unthankful task. “Artie needs-”

“Leave it, Myka. Better than sweating to death, isn’t it,” the prone man said with considerable effort at lightness. “Claudia, I… well. Who’d have thought.” He coughed, once, and a heavy tremor ran through him, making the young red-headed agent draw closer and touch his face with a trembling hand.

“Artie, Artie, Artie, don’t do this, you’re not doing this, YOU ARE SO NOT DOING THIS!” Claudia punched the wall with her fist, then spun on her haunches to face Mrs. Frederic. “DO SOMETHING!” she yelled, voice breaking.

For a moment, the tableau held – Claudia staring at the Warehouse’s caretaker in a mixture of accusation and expectation, Helena looking at Myka’s turned back, Pete and Steve exchanging a confused glance. Then Mrs. Frederic turned to the person she had brought with her. 

“Ms. Sperling, I think now would be a good moment.”

The woman, small and slim and with determined grey eyes, nodded once.


	2. Thread A: 1

_Trust no one._

She slipped back into that way of thinking surprisingly, disturbingly easily. And her order to disappear from view – well, she had done that before. 

And so it happened that Emily Lake arrived in Zürich, Switzerland, enthusiastically telling the airport border guard about her plans to do some ‘mountain hiking’, deliberately overlooking how his eyes rolled skywards about yet another excitable American.

Miss Lake then told the same thing to the concierge in her Zürich hotel (a dingy, two-star affair affordable on a teacher’s budget that had already been severely depleted by a return ticket for a transatlantic flight), and, to be safe, to the counter agent at the city’s main train station while buying a ticket to Interlaken. 

After that, Miss Lake did some sight-seeing. Zürich’s oldest house had been a curiosity for centuries; it was, predictably, a museum now. And now, as then, it was but a short moment’s work to beguile one of the caretakers into letting her into the cellar, where, from between dusty bottles and half-rotten clay bricks, an only slightly rusted box was retrieved.

And then Emily Lake disappeared while ‘hiking’ the Swiss Alps. 

A hotel room stood empty for a day too long, a concerned concierge notified the authorities, a search was initiated. But then, the Kommissar in charge said a bit acerbically to his colleague, the Alps had claimed excitable and ill-prepared people before. After forty-eight hours, the American embassy was informed, no known relatives were unearthed, personal effects were collected and catalogued and, doubtlessly, carted off to somewhere for safe-keeping, and Miss Emily Hannah Lake was registered as ‘missing, presumed dead’. The clerk doing so noticed, with a brief pang of confused compassion, that it was the second time. Then he returned his attention to the rest of his work.


	3. Thread B: 4

Artie ran into the sunlit room, dagger in one hand, the orchid in its indestructible eggshell in the other. And out of the dancing dust motes glittering so peacefully in the sunlight, two figures rose to knock him down.

“I have the orchid,” an accent-tinged voice panted after a brief struggle, “do you have the dagger?”

“Yes,” another, unfamiliar voice hissed as the Warehouse team burst into the room, grouping around Claudia, trying to take in the scene in front of their eyes.

“Helena?” Myka sounded disbelieving. 

“Myka, take it,” Helena groaned, grappling with Artie one-handedly while holding the orchid’s case in her other. The taller woman shot forwards to retrieve the artifact, while Pete joined Helena in subduing the dark-haired man.

“Who’s she?” Steve pointed at the stranger when things had settled a bit.

“First things first,” the woman said in thickly accented English, laboriously getting to her knees while Helena and Pete grabbed one of Artie’s arms each, holding him upright. Helena gasped at seeing the dagger embedded deeply in the woman’s side. 

“Laura, you-”

Artie tried to use the moment to break free, but Pete redoubled his grip. “Oh no you don’t.”

“No time, Agent Wells,” the woman called Laura pressed from between clenched teeth, finally on her feet. “Hold him still.” She crossed over to the three of them, then stretched out her arms, every motion obviously painful but also, and equally obviously, deliberate. Her hands cupped Arthur Nielsen’s face, left, right, pulling the struggling man inexorably closer until his forehead rested against hers. Upon contact, shudders began running through both of them, growing more pronounced with every passing second. 

When the woman finally let go, both she and Artie dropped to their knees, the latter pulling the two agents holding his arms with him to the ground. 

“Pete! Helena! Are you okay?” Myka called out in alarm.

“We’ve still got him,” Pete said, making sure of it by twisting Artie’s arm behind his back.

“There’s no need to hold him any longer,” Laura breathed, head hanging, right hand spread on the floor to keep upright. Helena let go of Artie and stepped forwards to help her up, only to be stopped by an upheld hand. “No touching, remember? Too dangerous. I have them both.”

“You have them both? Both what?” Claudia asked sharply. “H.G., what’s going on here?”

“Both evils,” Helena said ever so softly, and still the words carried. “It worked, then?”

The stranger nodded. Another shudder ran through her. “For now, I’m on top of it, but we don’t have much time. H.G..” The name was accompanied by a lopsided grin and a weak roll of eyes. 

“She’s right, Agent Wells.” Five out of the seven heads present shot around to gape at Mrs. Frederic, walking out of the twilight in the back of the room. The woman called Laura had the newcomer in her line of sight in any case; Helena just closed her eyes and bowed her head. “The astrolabe, if you please. Agent Bering, I’ll take the orchid, now, too.”

Laura rose again, with even more difficulty than before, right hand still held aloft to avert any help, left held loosely to her wounded side. Once standing, she swayed for a moment, then her eyes snapped back open to lock onto Helena’s. Suddenly, a smile that could only be called beatific spread on her exhausted face; a moment later Helena felt Myka protectively taking up station up beside her. “Don’t repeat my mistake,” Laura told the English agent, eyes filled with more light than just the sunshine falling through the windows. Then she held out her hand. 

Helena reached into her bag and retrieved the cloth-wrapped astrolabe. From the corners of her eyes she saw Myka shake her head in confusion when the artifact changed hands, though for the life of her Helena could not say whether that was because she was handing over an artifact to a virtual stranger, or because both women took such excruciating care not to touch fingers as one took the astrolabe from the other. 

The arm holding the artifact dropped visibly as Helena released her hold, but Laura held on to the disk determinedly. “Thank you,” she said, then brought her arm up to wipe a speck of blood from the corner of her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt. She looked at the crimson spot with apparent amusement, even rolled her eyes once more. “I’ll be going, then.”

Helena nodded, swallowing dryly. “Be safe.”

The woman called Laura found strength to chuckle at that as she passed to where Mrs. Frederic stood waiting. It was the last sound Helena heard of her before a thud signaled the door closing behind the two women.

Then Claudia stepped forwards, hand pointing towards said door. “Now what the freaking hell was that all about?”

“She saved me,” Artie said from his position on the floor; everyone turned to stare at him. He shrugged with one shoulder. “It felt like she took the evil into herself, in some way.” He looked at Helena inquisitively – surmising correctly that, of everyone present, she was the only one to know about the stranger. The other agents’ eyes followed suit.

Helena simply nodded again, not quite trusting her voice. 

“Does that mean Artie’s not the bad guy anymore?” Pete asked, still keeping a vice-like grip on Artie’s arm despite the sudden hope in his eyes.

“That-” Helena cleared her throat, “that was the plan, at least.” 

“That was a _plan?”_ Claudia sounded outraged. “To rope in an innocent bystander, stick her with an artifact, hope that she finds the proper… I don’t know, rite of exorcism, and then lead her away like a lamb to slaughter?” The red-head, suddenly the center of attention, looked around, meeting everyone’s eyes. “What, didn’t you see it? If that wasn’t sacrifice, I don’t know what is. Right? I mean we knew we had to get the evil out of you in some way, Artie, and she said she had it, and then-”

“She said she had them both,” Myka interrupted her, her voice low and urgent. “Helena, did she-? Did _you-_?” 

Helena’s eyes followed the swirls of fighting-scuffed dust on the floor. She could not answer Myka’s question; Claudia’s choice of words had rung too deep. _I’m the expendable one_ , Laura’s words echoed in her head.

“One of you used the astrolabe, didn’t you?” Myka pressed gently. 

“You _what?!”_ Claudia spluttered. “But doesn’t that mean the Warehouse is gone?” She looked wildly at Helena, took two steps, grabbed her sleeve. “Will you-”

“No, Claudia.” Artie’s voice was just as somber as Myka’s had been. “Because it wasn’t me who used the astrolabe a second time. Someone else used it for their first time.”

“Helena?”

The English agent looked at each of them in turn, finally meeting Myka’s eyes. Taking heart in what she thought she saw in them, she inhaled sharply, then nodded. “Apparently, the last time we arrived here, we arrived too late. So, yes. Laura did indeed use the astrolabe.”


	4. Thread A: 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asterisked lines are spoken German. Just for the record.

Helena watched the scene in front of her intently; not because it was difficult to tear her eyes away from wreckage and gore (she was English, granting the accident privacy should have been second nature), but because she had the irritating feeling that whatever was happening here involved the use of an artifact, and she still considered herself a Warehouse agent. 

Of course, her first and foremost duty was to keep the astrolabe safe. Its weight tugged quite comfortingly at the strap of her carrier bag, the third receptacle that held the blasted thing, signifying as many changes of identity. The passport nestled alongside it identified the bag’s wearer as Monika Sander, a legal citizen of Berlin, Germany, who happened to have been educated in London, England. 

Not that she had had to tell that story, so far.

After reaching the Balkan tatters of the Alps, she had briefly wondered where to turn next – the idea of going to France had been discarded just as quickly as the thought of Great Britain; Italy with its rampant corruption had its appeals, but she had been in Italy only recently during her research and truly, her German was better than her Italian, if a bit behind the times. Learning German had been the done thing when she had been educated; and just as with modern English, she had not the hint of a doubt that she would quickly adapt to the linguistic changes a century had wrought. 

It had been appallingly easy to disappear off the face of the Earth in Berlin, Germany.

But her eyes and mind did not consent to be closed against the things happening around her, and now she was standing a ways off in the shadows, watching a female figure stoop down and cup the cheek of a very severely injured child while ambulance men swarmed around the site of the accident. Where the child had been groaning, at times yelling, only moments before, there was an almost unearthly silence now that the woman held him.

She looked to be at the beginning of her fourth decade, while the child appeared male and nearing the end of his first. Both had dark hair and fair skin, but any further detail or possible family resemblance was lost in the Berlin dusk. 

Helena had arrived too late to have seen the accident itself; it seemed to have involved two cars that had held among them at least six people, and a concrete pillar. Men were working on the twisted remnants of one of the cars with heavy-looking implements, others were methodically appraising the figures prone on the ground, yet more were talking to the unavoidable gawkers. 

Helena watched as one man knelt beside the woman cradling the boy and, after a short run-down of diagnoses, straightened again. Watched as he touched the woman’s arm and shook his head before getting up and moving, quickly, to other victims of the accident. Triage, she thought bitterly. A death sentence in other words. 

The woman, though, stayed with the boy, stroking his hair with one hand while still cupping his face with the other. In the flurry of competent activity, the two of them were a puddle of dark, sad stillness. 

Try as she might, Helena could not tear her eyes away nor move any other muscle as she watched the woman finally bow down, touch her brow to the child’s forehead, straighten his limbs with slow and meticulous motions, and get up and walk away. 

It was only when the woman turned to head straight towards where she was standing that her nerve tracts finally resumed their working, propelling her into the woman’s path.

*What did you do with him?* she asked, in accented but accurate German.

*I beg your pardon?* the woman asked in turn. The eyes she turned on her interrogator were grey and flat as paving stones. 

*What did you do to the boy you just walked away from?* Helena pressed.

The woman’s face closed even more, a feat that Helena would have thought nigh impossible a moment ago. *What needed to be done.* She brushed abruptly past the agent and started to walk on.

Helena took three quick steps that brought her within range to grab the woman’s arm and yank her around. *Did you kill that child?* It was more a hiss and spit than a sentence. But then, the very idea-

The woman jerked her arm free with an almost violent movement. *How dare you!* Eyes that had been cool now seemed to burn with the very pain Helena felt constricting the back of her throat. *How can you possibly-* Then she drew herself up, suddenly sporting a front of composure again that, for all that Helena knew could be nothing but a sham, threatened Helena’s own poise more than the flashing anger had. *I do not kill. I just do what needs to be done, to let them go peacefully.*

*What?* Again, Helena’s utterance was barely more than a hissed breath. *And what kind of euphemism is that, pray?*

The woman laughed, once, a sound utterly devoid of humor. *Fine. Have it your way.* She made as if to turn again, and when Helena moved closer to prevent her from doing so, she found her face grabbed by two strong, too-warm hands and had barely time to deplore falling for what must surely be the oldest trick in any book before-

Loss, above all. Loss and pain and self-reproach, all dark and deep and aching and too much. Helena knew it, of course, knew the huge, bitter, churning broil of what remained of her soul, but she had never before experienced it like… this. And there, at the edges of it, she felt… a presence, stretched thin in its strive to take it all and cradle it in soothing comfort, trying to calm this utter turmoil. She saw herself through its eyes – a roaring sea of anguish and on it, riding in a ship made of nothing more than determination and disbelief, a stuttering spark of hope. Waves, she saw, mountainous swells of blackness, breakers of cold despair that a single touch of a stranger’s soul never could hope to appease, no matter how desperate the waters wanted to _not_ break, to finally, finally be soothed.

They both reeled as they broke apart.

Helena caught her arms wrapping around her midriff in a feeble attempt to contain… anything and everything. At the sound of the other woman clearing her throat, though, Helena straightened instantly, eyes flaring. *What the devil…* Her voice was raw. Small wonder.

*You wanted to know what I did. This is what I do.* The other woman huffed a bitter laugh. *Only it… your pain is…* She broke off, apparently trying to put words to what they had both felt. *I’m sorry,* she finished, shoulders dropping lamely. *I should… I’ll just… I’ll go now.*

She turned and walked not quite quickly enough for it to be a run, never looking back and thus not seeing Helena staring after her with tortured eyes.


	5. Thread B: 5

“Hey, H.G., I think that’s for you.” Pete reached out an envelope to her as she walked up to the car. “It was wedged behind the wiper. Look, it says ‘Helena’.” He pointed to where, indeed, her first name was written on the brown paper. Helena took it, then looked at him pointedly for a long moment. “Yah,” he suddenly realized, dropping his arm, then swinging both of them back and forth, clapping his hands each time they came up in front of him. “I’ll, uh, I’ll give you some privacy, then, right?”

“Thank you.” Helena found a smile for him, then watched him walk a few steps back towards the mill, still swinging his arms. Then she turned to head in the opposite direction, following the brook that powered the mill to an overgrown meadow. She leaned her forearms on the fence surrounding it, turning the envelope around and around in her hands for long minutes.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” she welcomed the intruder, unreasonably glad to have a basis for postponing opening the letter. 

“I had been wondering, you know,” Myka said softly, mirroring Helena’s posture and squinting into the sunlight that slanted across the meadow. “If I’d ever see you again. I seem to do that a lot.”

“Myka, I’m-”

“Of course,” Myka went on as if Helena had not spoken, “Mrs. Frederic did tell us, eventually, that she’d sent you abroad with the astrolabe. But I mean, even before that, I didn’t see a lot of you, did I, what with your research and all. At least you used to send postcards, then. From all over Europe, too.” 

“If only to make Pete envious,” Helena murmured. 

“Oh, that worked alright.” They continued watching the grass grow for a few moments. “Are you okay, Helena?”

 _Of every way she could have reacted to yet another sudden return of mine after weeks of insufficiently explained absence – reproach, demand, disdain; all well within her rights – Myka Bering chooses solicitousness._ And how to answer? If she asked this way, it was because she knew Helena was not okay. It was Myka’s way of providing an opportunity for Helena to evade further questioning by asserting she was ‘fine’, but did she want to do that? Helena’s warring thoughts seemed to spread to her cerebellum, because she suddenly lost her grip on the envelope, blinking stupidly as it fluttered a yard or so into the meadow. 

“Hold on, I’ll get it,” Myka said, already crouching to slip through the fence. 

Helena couldn’t help but watch and wonder, not for the first time, how anyone could turn gangly length into such gracefully coordinated action. Truth be told, she had, a long time ago, concluded that fencing and martial arts and, not to be forgotten, the rigorous training for Secret Service agents would probably do the same trick that Kenpo and dancing lessons and riding had done for herself. Still she would watch, with bated breath, whenever the opportunity presented itself. _It doesn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it’s done,_ she remembered Pete saying once. 

“There you are.” With a whoosh of breath, Myka rose, now leaning on the fence from the other side. She nodded towards it. “Open it?” Again, there was an escape route in how Myka inflected her voice, making her words question rather than prompt. 

_Don’t make my mistake, Helena._ So instead of dodging and shirking, Helena ran one finger underneath the flap, frowning when a second, smaller envelope slid out. “Whatever is in this,” she said, hefting it and reading the address on it, “is for… I would say an institution, in… Cologne? I don’t recognize the acronym, I’m afraid, but ‘Köln’ I understand.” Peering inside the larger envelope, she saw a sheet of paper and coaxed it out, then perused the hand-written lines, the little of them that there were. “Laura… asks me to take the letter there, personally, for some reason.” She looked up at Myka, large envelope in one hand, missive and small envelope in the other. “Why would she ask me to cross the Federal Republic of Germany to deliver a letter?”

“You tell me,” Myka said, then dropped her eyes quickly. “Um, unless… you don’t want to. I mean, I don’t have a right to…”

“You don’t have a right to ask about the stranger I brought along to a Warehouse operation?” Helena asked, eyebrow a-quirk.

“Well, if you put it that way,” Myka conceded. “I _had_ wondered. You know. About her.” _And you._ The words hover in the air as blaringly as if Myka had said them. 

_Many of my lovers were men. What on Earth had driven me to say that?_ The irresistible urge to flirt shamelessly with a beauty who had not even been looking at her at that precise moment, granted, but since then, Helena had wished quite frequently that she had kept her mouth shut that particular time. It had not exactly scared Myka off, but it had lent a subtext to such a lot of her, Helena’s actions – a subtext that, at times, was rather welcome, a subtext that, like now, she could have gladly done without. And subtext or no, what on Earth was driving her, time and again, to this woman’s side, into her personal space, under her skin? More than the pursuit of redemption, that much was a given, but what ‘more’, exactly? And whatever it was, it was mutual, was it not? Was it? 

“I met her in Berlin,” Helena answered the easier question. “Our first meeting… I misjudged her, very much so. I suspected her of using an artifact in a harmful fashion, only to find out that if anyone was hurt by its use, she was.” And quite more important than that, she wanted to assure Myka that every interaction there had been between Laura Sperling and herself had been completely and utterly devoid of any form of unwarranted attraction, but-

“Hey, double Ms. Fencepost,” Claudia interrupted, jogging up and coasting to a halt beside the two of them. “Artie has given up looking for ruffled German feathers to pat down; seems that the Steinbrücks are all gone, and now Jack wants to hit the road. H.G., you weren’t telling Myka about this Laura person, by any chance? Because if you were, maybe you could wait until we’re on our way; we’re all curious, you know, and that way you don’t have to repeat yourself.”

“How considerate of you,” Helena replied, arching her eyebrow. 

Claudia sketched her a bow. “Anything for the woman who stopped me from having to stab Grumpy Grumpshausen with a dagger. Mind you, after…” Her voice dropped away, and her mouth quivered once. Then she drew herself up and visibly out of that line of thought, and gave them both a shaky smile, jamming her hands into the pockets of what she’d once told Helena were ‘skinnies’. “Anyway, let’s get going, right?”


	6. Thread A: 3

Laura Sperling was what Claudia would probably call a loner, Helena decided. 

Helena had followed the woman for well-nigh a week now. Enrolled at one of Berlin’s university for psychology courses, Laura Sperling supported herself by working in the institution’s library, and lived in the blandest flat Helena had ever set eyes on. In the last six days, and each day unfailingly, Sperling had roamed the streets of Berlin endlessly and aimlessly for hours after work and before turning in. In the same stretch of time, she had, if Helena’s count was accurate (and it was), been delivered three letters of the official rather than personal nature, had shopped for groceries once without losing a single word, and had received exactly nil visitors.

She had been almost ridiculously easy to shadow, Helena thought, rounding the corner on her own way home.

Which was why she was not entirely surprised to see the woman standing in front of her with crossed arms; not quite confrontational, but certainly not overjoyed either. 

*What do you want from me?*

Helena continued past the woman and, sure enough, Sperling turned and kept up, following the agent to a nearby little park, pitch-dark except for a few scattered lanterns. She even sat down on the same bench, carefully selected to be outside the cones of light.

*I want to understand.* 

At least Sperling didn’t try misdirection, huffing a bitter laugh instead. *What’s to understand? I can sense what you need and if it’s within me, you get it.* Looking down at her boots, she continued, *I’m worse than freaking Troi, is what I am.*

Helena did not quite understand that last reference (although parts of what she surmised about the woman did reek of Greek tragedy, why would she compare herself to a city rather than one of its inhabitants?), but decided to forge ahead regardless. *Did anything happen to set this off?*

Sperling stiffened. *I don’t see where that’s any of your business.*

That read ‘yes’ to this agent. *It is possible that I can offer assistance,* Helena said, voice reasonable, patient. The woman did seem agitated, after all, and it was true that Helena could help. She did have a few neutralizer bags on her person, and while they were not meant as a long-term solution, there surely was a way to overcome that obstacle once they were confronting it. 

*How could you help? You’re near drowning as it is.* 

True, too. Years of schooling her facial features into at least the resemblance of composure helped Helena keep a hold of her expression while the woman’s words rang in her ears. *How long have you had this ability, Frau Sperling?* she rephrased her question.

Laura Sperling’s face wasn’t nearly as emotionless. Hope and mistrust waged a brief war, then the woman’s shoulders slumped. *Five years, almost. And yes, there _was_ something that started it, I suppose.* She stared ahead without really seeing anything. Helena knew that sort of look, born of steadfast concentration on one thing in order to be able to ignore the rest. 

*He loved me,* Sperling said, and Helena closed her eyes, suddenly quite convinced that she did not want to hear the rest. But unseeing eyes will not perceive another person’s discomfort, she knew, and right enough, the woman continued, voice as calm as if she were reporting on the weather. *He was my best friend. I loved him, as a friend, of course I did. But never the way he…* she broke off, gritting her teeth, then took a shaky breath and continued. *He helped me get through school, he helped me in my work, he helped me when my marriage started turning bad. He was always _there_. And then Frank, my then-husband, started beating me, and things became… ugly. I pushed Gus away, I had to. I couldn’t let him see how weak I’d become, to let someone do that to me. I couldn’t bear seeing his disappointment.*

Helena murmured something along the lines that a friend like that would not have been disappointed, but she might as well not have bothered for all the impact her words seemed to have. 

*And then Gus had… an accident,* Sperling continued her account. *The rescue team found my number in his wallet, so they called me in to the hospital. He…* She closed her eyes with a flutter, then snapped them open again. *He joked about it. How he could finally disclose his true feelings, now that he was on his deathbed.* Lips pursed sharply, a chin jutted. A fighting mien, and Helena knew the enemy so intimately. *God, telling it like that, this sounds like a penny novel,* Sperling laughed, a little wildly. *Anyway, he… I… I kissed him. And that was the first time it happened.*

Helena let a few moments slink away before asking, in the gentlest way possible to her, *Was there anything unusual about the things you wore that day, or had with you?*

*What kind of question is that, for heaven’s sake?* For the first time since they sat down, Sperling looked straight at Helena. 

*I know it must sound strange, but indulge me for a moment,* Helena pleaded. 

Sperling’s face was lost in thought for a moment, then closed. *No. There wasn’t.* She rose abruptly. *I should be going.* And turned to Helena, *and you should not be following.*

*Agreed.* Helena doubted Sperling heard her. The woman was already walking away, anger visibly spurring her steps.


	7. Thread B: 6

Claudia had insisted that Pete drive the larger car, pointing out to Helena and Myka that German autobahnen were bad enough without Artie behind the wheel before joining Steve Jinks in a car that seemed almost ridiculously small, even for European proportions. Artie had slipped in next to Pete, to ‘point out the way’, which left Myka and Helena to share the back seat. Neither of them had lost a word when the mill had disappeared in the rear mirror. Then Claudia had proceeded to establish a phone connection between the cars, finally asking Helena to ‘spill it’.

Barely two sentences into her explanation of how she had met Laura, though, the young woman had interrupted her, irritated by how Helena pronounced the name with an ‘ow’ rather than an ‘aw’-sound. Helena had answered, quite levelly, that it was the German way, and asked her not to spoil the tale before continuing with her recount of the German woman’s actions and possible motifs. 

“So does she, or does she not, have an artifact that allows her to do the things she does?” Pete asked from the driver’s seat. “I mean, she’s not half-Betazoid, is she?”

“I beg your pardon?” Helena asked while Claudia’s whoop reverberated over the phone’s speaker or, possibly, the distance between the two cars. 

“Oh, uh, never mind, H.G.. What I’m saying is there’s no way she can do that all on her own, right?” He caught Helena’s eyes in the rear mirror. “This emotion-soothing thingamajig.” He wriggled his fingers. “There’s gotta be an artifact behind that.”

“Trust me, Peter,” Helena said stiffly, “we touched on that subject, and she reassured me she didn’t have any heirlooms or otherwise pertinent objects in her possession.” She tried to catch Artie’s eyes – these mirrors were handy devices for overcoming the drawbacks of communicating between a car’s front and back row. “I completed the whole set of questions.”

“No fudge, then?” Pete persisted.

“No confectionery of any description,” Helena sighed. 

“What about the ring she wears?” Trust Myka Bering to notice the minutest details.

“She had been married.” The answer was brief, as had been Laura’s explanation of when and why she had finally divorced her abusive husband. And briefness in and of itself will speak volumes, sometimes.

“Oh,” Myka said in a subdued voice.

“Quite,” Helena tried for a soothing tone to her words, to appease the sorrow in Myka’s eyes. Then she took a deep breath and continued, “She approached me yesterday and handed over the astrolabe. It surprised me for a moment, since I knew the artifact rested securely in my shoulder bag, but it was, indubitably, the very same item. So I brought out _my_ astrolabe, and the two… coalesced. It confirmed her explanation of what she had done, and she proceeded to outline the plan that Mrs. Frederic, she, and my alternate self had come up with.”


	8. Thread B: 1

“Helena! Thank God.” 

Helena narrowed her eyes as the smaller woman approached with quick, almost running steps. “How do you know my name? And why English, all of a sudden, rather than German?”

Sperling stopped when she was three feet away, bending forwards, hands on knees and breathing heavily. “I’m not cut out for this sort of thing,” she wheezed. “Thank God I’ve found you; I had _no_ idea where I should have looked for you if you hadn’t been here.” ‘Here’ being in front of a book store Helena had found, a venue specializing in first editions of German philosophical texts that might just hold the book she’d wanted to give Myka one day. 

“Ms. Sperling,” Helena opted for patience in the face of apparently imminent asphyxia, “might I reiterate my questions?”

“Huh?”

“How do you know my name, and why are we talking in my tongue, not yours?” And something else – “and how did you know to find me here?” Helena had stumbled across the place quite by accident, just now. There was no way in bloody hell that the woman could have known Helena would be here.

“Oh. Uh. Well.” Sperling took Helena’s arm and pulled her along, walking her to the apex of a bridge spanning one of Berlin’s numerous thoroughfares. The place, for all its visibility, was spectacularly private in terms of passers-by. “You told me your name. And that you’d be at that book shop in the afternoon.”

“I did nothing of the-” it came together. Helena surreptitiously hefted her bag, which still weighted the same as it had when she had left her lodgings that morning. “You used the…” Sperling nodded, and Helena shot her a sharp glance. “How?”


	9. Thread A: 4

The second time Helena watched Laura Sperling employ her artifact (or ability; there still was no telling, although the very nature of said ability seemed to point due Warehouse), she did not accost the woman afterwards. It had been a much larger accident, involving a group of schoolchildren crossing the street at a traffic light and a large SUV-type car, its driver drunk regardless of the early hour. 

Helena did not need to see the slumped shoulders or mindless cadence of Sperling’s gait to know the other woman’s sorrow. She reassured herself she was following her to ascertain the woman came to no harm; Sperling did not seem to care where her feet were taking her.

When her steps had taken them across the river, beneath a railway bridge, into a park and eventually to a bench, Helena sat down beside her, sharing the view of the Spree, and her silence.

They sat like that until the sun had fully cleared the horizon behind the two-chimneyed factory. Sperling’s breath came in a rhythm alternately too measured or too quick, but as far as Helena could make out, there were no tears. There was not even motion, except for an endless turning of the ring on the woman’s right.

Finally, the German woman rose again, turning towards the way they had come. After taking a few steps, she craned her neck around and regarded Helena with a tilted head and raised eyebrows, causing the agent to scramble to her feet and follow. 

*Five,* Sperling offered when they were halfway back to the bridge. She took a deep breath and stopped, meeting Helena’s eyes for the first time. *Five dying children. And I had time for only three of them.* Her eyes blazed black with subdued anguish. 

It shocked Helena into silence for a few long breaths; then, unable to hold the words back, she whispered, *I witnessed my daughter die.* 

The woman’s nostrils widened, and her eyelids fluttered close. *I’m sorry.* When they opened again, her eyes were unfathomable. *I didn’t know you had a daughter. Then again,* she huffed, *I don’t even know your name.* 

_Trust no one._ *Monika,* Helena said. *Monika Sander.* She was ready to follow this up with her back story, but Sperling simply nodded and began walking again. 

*You said you could help.* She heaved a heavy breath. *And while I know I’m… bleak, afterwards, and shouldn’t make any far-reaching decisions in this state, I…* another long exhalation, *I simply don’t want anymore. They call it a gift, but to me, a curse is what it is.*

*Can you tell me more about it?*

*More than you’ve already experienced?* Sperling asked pointedly, and Helena shuddered quite without volition. Still, she nodded.

*The rescue services recognize me by now,* the German went on, and Helena tried to follow that new tangent. *Some even contact me when there’s an accident that involves children. Each time my phone rings with one of their numbers, I swear not to answer it. Each time, inevitably, I do, because how can I deny the children? It’s an obligation, to have a gift-* she spat the word *-like that.*

Again, Helena nodded. _That_ sentiment came easy to a Warehouse agent. And she carefully chose to look at the matter only as a Warehouse agent would, not as, say, a moth-

*Injured children are afraid,* Sperling cut through Helena’s thoughts, looking at feet that moved not quite in unison, allowing for their difference in height. *And I can… soothe that, if not the body’s pain. And that buys time, sometimes enough for life-saving measures, sometimes not. In those cases, I… cradle the heart I’m touching until it… stops. I don’t leave them alone. They mustn’t be alone.* Probably unconsciously, her steps had speeded up to a near-jog. *The three I touched today died, but at least I… the other two died alone.* Sperling’s voice had dropped to a whisper on the last words.

_Christina had died alone._

There was a ringing in Helena’s ears, and she stumbled, and Sperling’s hand shot out- 

“Careful, Agent Wells,” a familiar, if completely unexpected voice spoke out. Sperling snapped around before her hand had a chance of touching Helena’s elbow. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Frederic catching her other arm, Helena would indeed have fallen. As it was, all three of them reeled like drunken sailors for a step or five before they managed to catch themselves.

“‘Agent Wells’?” Sperling said, eyebrows shooting towards her hairline. “What’s going on here?”


	10. Thread B: 2

“So we need to go to that mill and stop the bad guy from destroying the world. And you should warn your fellow agents not to talk so goddamn much,” Sperling added grimly. “Plus, this time, I’ll drive.”

“You’ll what?” It seemed like an utter non-sequitur.

“Nevermind,” Sperling shook her head, turning away from Helena to stare down at the tapeworm of cars. “What I do know is that we can’t set much in motion until Mrs. Frederic arrives. She needs to be there, and if we don’t inform her of this-” she waved her hand around, “-change of plans, she will be looking for you here. Futilely, I might add, if we rush to that mill now.”

“I cannot contact her,” Helena said guardedly, “I don’t have the means.”

“But you could contact the others of your team, right? And they could contact her, then.”

“I’ve been told not to,” Helena said, still hearing Mrs. Frederic’s _trust no one_ in one ear. _The artifact begets evil. How do I know she’s-_

“I’m on top of the personality split at the moment,” Sperling said, answering Helena’s thoughts rather than her words. 

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s the obvious direction to think in, isn’t it.” Sperling pursed her lips. “Look, I’m not sure how to get you to trust me, but…” She suddenly snapped her fingers and started to rummage in her worn-out rucksack. “Maybe this helps.” And proffered a disk wrapped in purple cloth.

“What the-” Helena stared at it, then unearthed a pair of gloves from her own bag and unwrapped- “the astrolabe,” she breathed. She swallowed, then raised her eyes to meet Sperling’s slightly embarrassed gaze. “I feel inclined to agree that someone harboring unfathomable evil would not give it away like that. But-” She unslung her bag fully, set it down on the pavement and brought out the – other? – astrolabe. The cloth was the same, the weight was the same, and when she took hers and held it above the one Sperling had given her, the size was the same. Every blessed little detail was the same. Then the upper one dipped as if suddenly magnetic, and its far edge sank into the lower one. “What the-” Helena repeated, at a loss for words to finish the sentiment with. The joined artifacts tugged and she let go of one in favor of holding both, watching until they had merged into one. 

“Figures,” Sperling shrugged after a moment of silent contemplation, then looked up at Helena with a lopsided smile. “Otherwise there would be quite a few of these thingies around by now, right?”

Helena took a deep breath, and re-wrapped and re-bagged the artifact. “So it would appear.” She straightened again, slinging the bag over her shoulder. “Now, if I were indeed to call my colleagues – what would I tell them?”

“We need Mrs. Frederic and the dagger to be at the mill as quickly after Mrs. Frederic’s flight sets down as possible. And we might need a container, if Agent Nielsen manages to break the one the orchid is contained in at the moment.”

Well, that definitely called out for a like-minded intellect. She had dialed half of Claudia’s number when Sperling snapped her fingers.

“Wait – we could ask her to come to Zittau directly,” she said. “There’s really no point in her coming to Berlin only to rush south with us again, is there.” She tapped her fingers against her mouth, then snapped them once more. “Dresden!” She turned her eyes on Helena again. “Ask whomever you’re contacting if they can’t tell Mrs. Frederic to come to Dresden. There’s an airport there.”

Helena nodded and finished dialing.

“Ho-ho, lookee who’s there,” Claudia answered after barely more than one signal. “What gives, H.G.?”

Helena quickly outlined their ideas, trying to present them without mentioning astrolabes, time travel, or shanghaied bystanders.

“Got it,” Claudia said. “Now who’s the clairvoyant in the background?”

“Claudia, I don’t-”

“Come on, H.G., there’s something you know that I don’t, and we know Mrs. Frederic isn’t with you. So there’s gotta be someone reading her lines at your end.”

“Claudia, don’t misinterpret me, but I’d really rather you just looked into what I asked.”

The line was silent for so long that Helena was tempted to tap her phone with her finger. Then, “Right.” A heavy sigh followed, and then the unmistakable sounds of Claudia Donovan besting a computer keyboard, interspersed with a few disjointed phrases like “Düsseldorf, for crying out loud,” or “no, that won’t work either.” Then came the sound of a small, triumphant tattoo, drummed out on something that reverberated dully. “Train!” Claudia exclaimed.

“Train.” Helena waited patiently. An explanation would be forthcoming, she was sure of it. 

“It doesn’t make sense to book Mrs. Frederic on a plane to Dresden, they don’t do non-stop flights. And then I realized that the two places are actually, like, only a hundred and twenty miles apart. God, Europe is so _tiny_.”

“In fact, the United States are mind-bogglingly large,” Helena disagreed. “Well, at least to other, smaller minds,” she amended, at Claudia’s snort of patent disbelief. 

“So I’ll just sit her on a train, then,” Claudia said slowly. Then her voice turned chipper, always a sign of imminent danger. “Should I put her on the one that leaves at six-thirty a.m., or the one two hours later?”

“Time is of the essence, Ms. Donovan,” Helena said, sighing in mock regret. 

“Neat,” Claudia squealed, and Helena held the phone away from her ear. “A few finishing touches, and the fell deed is done!” The last word coincided with another excitable drum roll. Then Claudia cleared her throat. “Uh, dude. Now you’ll only have to tell her. Hey, I’ll be cheering for you,” she added quickly. 

“Agent Donovan,” Helena said, drawing out the moment for maximum effect, “it appears I do in fact not have a Farnsworth on my person.”

Claudia swallowed audibly.


	11. Thread A: 5

Sperling was tapping her hand against her leg, clearly dissatisfied with the progress the driver was making on the way to their destination. The rented van had swivel seats in the passenger compartment, something new but manifestly sensible to Helena’s eyes. Upon leading them to the car, Mrs. Frederic had taken one of the front-facing ones, as had Helena, which had left only one facing back for Sperling. Helena was beginning to think it a remarkably bad decision, wondering if she should not offer to swap. The woman’s neck must be protesting by now, ten minutes into the ride. 

One further hour into it, Mrs. Frederic had parted with quite an astounding wealth of information regarding the Warehouse and its purpose. Helena had kept her silence, fidgeting with her locket. It was not her place to judge whom the Caretaker revealed her secrets to, after all. Plain decency dictated that they should brief Sperling, having virtually shanghaied her into coming along, but the detailed account of Mrs. Frederic went far above and beyond that.

“So, Frau Sander,” Sperling murmured when the Caretaker had fallen silent, with a quick covert glance at the subject of her inquiry. 

“Indeed,” Helena answered, feeling uncomfortable.

“An alias, hm? Probably a forged passport, too,” the German continued in her accented English. “What have I gotten myself into? A science fiction novel?” Her eyebrows quirked.

Helena shifted in her seat. “I assure you this is quite real,” she said, her eyes flicking towards the landscape rushing by rather than meet the piercing grey glance directed at her. 

“Yes, Ms. Sperling,” Mrs. Frederic joined her, “real, and dangerous. If we do not get there in time-” she cast a brooding glance at their driver, but, really, now that they had left the city behind, it was smooth sailing, “-to save the orchid, there is no other option than to use the astrolabe. The plague must not be allowed to spread in the world.”

“Then why are you so hesitant to use it?” Sperling asked.

“Because whoever uses it creates an evil residing within themselves. A split personality, its bad half intent on thwarting the very purpose the astrolabe was used for in the first place.”

“And using the astrolabe would undo the changes made the first time it was used,” Helena added when Mrs. Frederic did not mention that particular caveat. From the few hints Artie had given, this undoing would wipe the whole Warehouse from the face of the Earth. It seemed an unthinkable option – agents, even caretakers might die, Warehouses might relocate (in fact, they were expected to) but, as far as Helena knew, not a single Warehouse had ever been actually, irretrievably destroyed. Preventing that from occurring would be a goal that justified well-nigh all means, would it not? Or would it? _What if Myka were to die, preventing it?_

“Not exactly, Agent Wells,” the Caretaker replied, oblivious to the sudden nausea that held Helena in its clammy grip. “That only holds true if one person uses the astrolabe twice.”

“So this Agent Nielsen mustn’t,” Sperling frowned. Helena silently blessed her for picking up the conversational thread; it gave her time to regain some semblance of composure.

Mrs. Frederic nodded. “Under absolutely no circumstances.” 

“And if someone else uses it, they’d turn into their own private version of Jekyll and Hyde?”

“Insofar as metaphors will be, this is correct. There appears to be a gradual worsening of the situation, however.”

“More Doctor Jekyll than Mister Hyde in the beginning and then the long slide to the dark side?”

“Again, your way of putting it is colorful, but essentially accurate.”

Sperling nodded then, too. “Could this ‘turning evil’ be averted in any way? Or could you contain it once it’s happened?”

Mrs. Frederic sighed. “We have looked into both options. The dagger currently in Agents Lattimer and Bering’s possession allows exorcisms of all sorts. It belonged to Francesco Borgia, renowned for saintly behavior up to and including the casting-out of demons.”

“Hold it,” Sperling said, frowning even more deeply than before. “A split personality isn’t a demon. It’s not that simple.”

“Ms. Sperling here is studying psychology,” Helena, finally able to follow the conversation more actively, elaborated for the benefit of Mrs. Frederic’s raised eyebrows. 

“I see.” The Caretaker tilted her head. “You are right, of course. But our research indicates that in this instance, the dagger, when inserted with the words ‘I cast you out’, should work in the desired fashion.”

“Oh, sticking someone with a sharp object solves all kinds of problems with their personality, I’m sure,” Sperling muttered, and Helena raised a hand to hide her smile. “How do you even know your agent will survive that kind of treatment?”

“We… don’t.”

There was a momentary silence at the Caretaker’s admission. Helena’s hand stayed where it was, but this time it hid an expression that was, as Pete would have called it, ‘on the other side of the world from amused’. Ends and means. _May all the gods have mercy._

Sperling swallowed, then nodded grimly. “I see. The greater good, and so on. I don’t envy you your job, Mrs. Frederic.” Her words sounded utterly sincere. Then she frowned again. “Either way, once you’ve cast it out, where does the evil go?”

“The dagger can shatter the most adamantine of substances. It will shatter the evil, too.”

“Do you _know_ that, or do you hope for it? And do you mean ‘shatter’ as in ‘destroy’, or as in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice’s broom? Will there be a million pieces of evil running loose?” 

“Let that be our concern, Ms. Sperling,” the Caretaker answered, making Helena wince. From the little she knew about Sperling by now, she would not be deterred by being told to mind her own business. Quite the contrary, possibly. 

And indeed, the other woman took a deep, almost affronted breath. “Well, what’s the difference between letting a plague loose on the world or subjecting people to the shattered pieces of an evil soul?”

“I strongly advise you to drop the matter, Ms. Sperling,” Mrs. Frederic said in a warning voice. 

Laura Sperling, admirably, chose to completely ignore both tone and content of her words, again. “What if there were an alternative to using the dagger?”

Helena found herself more and more approving of the way this woman’s mind worked. “That being?” She leaned forwards, disregarding Mrs. Frederic stormy look.

“My gift,” the German said quickly. “I mean, if it doesn’t work, you can use the dagger still.” She shrugged. “And if it does, you probably need to use it on me. But I’m the expendable one, aren’t I.” 

She held up both hands with a slight, self-deprecating smile, and Helena’s protest died on her lips. 

“I am,” she repeated, meeting Helena’s gaze with eyes that, for the first time, seemed almost peaceful.


	12. Thread B: 7

There rode in silence now. After Helena had finished her tale with how Laura’s break-neck driving had brought the three of them to the mill in time to stop Artie, everyone had seemed too lost in their own thoughts to comment. And, in truth, it _was_ only one matter of almost too many they had to come to terms with. Helena’s ears still rang with what she had heard Artie spit at Claudia while he had been possessed; she briefly wondered if the other two agents had been subjected to the same sort of diatribe. For all that the immediate danger of the orchid had been averted, the Warehouse team was not yet safe and home. 

“What was in that envelope, then?” Pete asked, a propos of nothing. 

“A letter, and a plea that I take it to its destination in person.” Helena did not mean to be rude, but then, she did not really want to talk about that particular subject, either.

“Well, why didn’t you say so? Where do we go?”

“You want to go there now? To Cologne?” Myka sounded as surprised as Helena felt.

“Sure,” Pete shrugged. “How much of a detour can it be?” His eyebrows rose, and he half-turned in his seat when his question was eloquently answered by a long-drawn-out silence.

“Somewhat more than four hundred miles?” Helena said finally.

“Oh. Well. Well, I don’t have anything better to do. Stevey-boy, race you!” As he shifted, the car seemed to shoot forwards, gaining speed at a rate Helena would have deemed quite impossible for an internal combustion engine, had she not witnessed Laura ‘put the pedal to the metal’, as the German woman had called it, a few hours before. 

_If you want to go places quickly in Germany, let a German drive,_ Laura had laughed as they had climbed into the car she had rented. Helena would swear on any five deities anyone would care to name that Laura had enjoyed the whiteness around Helena’s nose as they had charged down autobahn and federal road at a speed Helena had deliberately not converted into the more ratable miles per hour.

And of course, keeping a car on track at blinding speed requires all of your attention, a treacherous part of Helena’s mind had mused. No thoughts left for minor matters like imminent self-sacrifice – from what Laura had told her, on their way to Dresden the night before, Helena had understood that that would be the inevitable, and accepted, outcome. 

In view of that, it had seemed silly to insist on last names.


	13. Thread B: 3

“She’s important to you, isn’t she?” Sperling asked when Helena joined her on their Dresden hotel room’s small balcony.

Helena decided to do her the courtesy of not asking whom she meant. The question had been asked pointedly enough for her to surmise that in the course of the last twenty-four hours, Laura Sperling had met Myka Bering, and had come to some conclusions.

“That little spark of hope,” Sperling continued, “that’s her trust in you, isn’t it.”

So the woman had been thinking about what she had… seen, for want of a better word, in Helena’s mind when they had first met? And had come to more conclusions, it appeared.

“Because you don’t really trust yourself.” Sperling seemed perfectly capable of continuing this exceedingly one-sided conversation. Helena pointedly did not look at her, keeping her eyes on the river instead. The evening did seem almost impossibly beautiful, considering what forces were at large in the world.

“Well, excuse me,” Sperling shrugged, interpreting Helena’s silence quite accurately, “but seeing as I don’t have a lot of time left, I feel disinclined to hold back for the sake of courtesy. In all honesty, I’ve never met anyone so troubled before, Ms. Wells.”

“Ms. Sperling, if you are going to continue in this vein, do feel at liberty to call me Helena,” Helena said, sounding far more nonchalant than she felt.

“Laura, then,” the woman had reciprocated easily. “I’d shake your hand, only it… well. You know. Not only the empath stuff, but the resident evil, too. Can’t risk it jumping from me to you, can we.”

“Do you think that could happen?” Helena said, truly intrigued (and not a little grateful for this change of subject). 

Sperling – _Laura_ shrugged again, and now it was she who turned from Helena’s gaze to watch a rowing boat passing by below them. “Stranger things are happening, I’ve learned.” The corners of her mouth twitched. “Fascinating, you know. That life should go on like this,” she pointed at the boat, “while people dash around the globe trying to save the world. And here we are, having to wait until morning till we can do anything much about saving a world that’s truly in dire need for us to do so.”

“Long periods of boredom followed by short periods of excitement,” Helena agreed, leaning her forearms on the parapet.

Laura followed suit, close enough for Helena to feel her body’s warmth, but meticulously refraining from actual touch. “Excitement, huh? And here I thought that was to be had in rollercoasters or sushi restaurants.”

“Never having been to either yet, I’m sure I couldn’t comment,” Helena answered, smiling despite herself. Laura didn’t pick up on the humor, though, but sighed, giving Helena an insight of her own. “You’re regretful.”

“Hey.” Grey eyes well-nigh pierced her. “Any soul-searching done tonight will be yours, not mine.” They continued their scrutiny for a few heartbeats, then fell away again. “So, there’s a woman who trusts you even if you can’t trust yourself.” She paused briefly, apparently waiting for a response to this. When none was forthcoming, she continued, “oh, you don’t have to say anything. Just… stop me rambling if I’m totally wrong, please. I don’t like the idea of making a fool of myself in the last few hours of my life.” Again, she halted her words. Again, Helena kept her silence. Laura nodded. “You know, I was in a vaguely similar place. Being loved and not acting on it, even though in my case, it was because I didn’t know.” She turned to face Helena, who stonily kept her gaze on one of Dresden’s famous bridges. “Don’t go there, Helena,” she said softly. “Nothing in life is so bitter as to realize what you could have had when it’s too late to have it. Isn’t that thought scary enough to warrant the little bit of bravery that is needed to prevent it?”

Helena wanted to protest that bravery was not at issue here. She wanted to protest that she had faced dangers that would put this woman on her knees. She wanted to protest that Laura’s situation was nothing like her own. Most of all, she wanted to protest the use of the word ‘love’. 

“It is possible, I’d say,” Laura went on, oblivious of all the unsaid words cluttering the air between them, “to trust someone else to trust you, for as long as it takes you to regain your self-confidence. That is called healing, and _that_ is where you need to go, I’m thinking. I mean, I saw the raggedness around your corners; I know you’re brittle. And from the… hugeness of what I saw, I daresay there were times when you were close to shattering, or maybe even a wee bit beyond that bend. But you’re still here, is what I’m saying. And really, clinging to your pain like that? It’s unfair, and ill-mannered, and counterproductive.”

“I beg your pardon!” The words shot out, leaving Helena to stare at their wake. That was why she noticed the corners of Laura’s mouth twitching into an amused smirk, and cursed herself for letting the woman get under her skin that way.

“You heard me, I’m thinking.” Laura straightened to her full five feet three, regarding Helena with a more overt smile before returning inside.


	14. Thread B: 8

Trust Pete to be true to his word, even if said word had been no more than a whim. 

The setting sun found them more than halfway across Germany. They had stopped at a roadside restaurant that had been memorable less for its food than for a spectacular, if remarkably unsightly, view of a man-made mountain of what Myka speculated were mining wastes. Not quite up to par with just how large mining endeavors had grown over the last century, Helena felt inclined to accept that explanation until a better presented itself. 

Needless to say, Pete had gorged himself on the food in a quite off-putting manner – not that anyone else had felt like eating much. 

And now Helena caught her head dipping dangerously low, and not for the first time either, for all that it was barely six in the afternoon. Truth be told, ever after her de-bronzing, her sleep patterns had been haphazard at best – at least Helena chose to attribute the disruption to her century-long stay in what Claudia persistently called ‘Warehouse limbo’. She also chose to ignore the frequent (constant) nightmares that populated the times when she did, indeed, find sleep. The prospect of sleep catching her here, in front of an audience, as it were, was, quite frankly, terrifying. 

The next time Helena’s head snapped downwards, Myka sighed and reached out to tug at the other woman’s shoulder. “Come on,” she said with a slight smile and a roll of hazel eyes, “I know how irritating that can be, and there’s a perfectly good shoulder right here.” She patted the indicated body part and smiled at Helena’s raised eyebrow. “Here, I’ll even pad it for you.” She found a scarf somewhere and wadded it into something vaguely pillow-shaped. “Come _on_ ,” she repeated when she looked up to see that Helena had not moved a muscle. Her mouth quirked rather adorably above teasing eyes.

And thus, quite without volition, Helena Wells felt her temple touch soft, Myka-scented fabric, was lulled by her tiredness and the sound of the car’s tires on the road’s surface, and knew nothing for a while.

~~~

She woke to a sudden cessation of forwards movement and a hand cradling her head to keep it from lolling. Not meeting Myka’s eyes, she righted herself quickly and looked out of the window. “Our destination is a hotel?” she asked.

“Not quite,” Myka smirked. “We figured that by the time we would arrive, most institutions would be closed for the day, so we decided to catch up on our sleep and deliver the letter tomorrow. Claudia booked us into a hotel and here we are.” 

“And what a _place_ , I might add,” Pete cut in. “Artie man, you sure that’s within our budget?”

“I’m sure it’s not,” Artie grouched, sounding almost normal. “Mark my words: you’ll all be paying for your own dinners to make up for it.”

“Done deal,” Pete responded instantly, jumping out of the car and stretching expansively while looking up at the imposing glass-and-sandstone structure. “The friggin’ Hyatt, Claud!” He offered an upheld hand to the young agent who’d climbed out of the smaller car parked behind them, and she slapped it soundly. 

“Couldn’t say no to that view, could I?” she answered, pointing away from the hotel’s façade. 

Helena turned and gasped. The river was brilliantly lit, orange by the doubly-arched bridge, blue by some structure behind that. A ship sporting jaunty chains of colored light bulbs drew her eyes away from the bridge and up, to-

“Cologne Cathedral, yes, it’s big, it’s famous, it’s supposed to be beautiful,” Artie said. “It does not justify spending tons of Euros on hotel rooms, Claudia.” 

“Well, it’s what you have to settle for when you arrive in Cologne on short notice,” the young woman quipped, already in the process of retrieving her bag. “You could always sleep under that bridge, you know.”

Their banter lacked a bit of its rhythm, its ease, its cheer. But it was banter, and as such, the mode of communication they both were most comfortable with, Helena knew. Maybe it was a form of, if not healing in and of itself, then at least managing the pain until healing could be found. 

It certainly seemed a better strategy than the ones she had employed in her life.

“Dibs on sharing with Steve,” she heard Claudia sing out over her shoulder as she walked towards the entrance.

Pete seemed to realize the implications of that quite quickly, looking alternately at how closely Myka was hovering near Helena, and at Artie rummaging around in the trunk of the larger car. He let out a heartfelt groan. 

Then Artie turned around, fixing him with a beady stare. “Join me in hoping that she booked twins, not doubles.”

Myka chuckled at Pete’s renewed and even more piteous groan, then threaded her arm through Helena’s and pulled her away from river, bridge and spires.

~~~ 

Claudia had, in fact, booked at least one double. At any rate, that was the configuration of the room Helena and Myka found themselves in when they retreated after dinner. Myka grinningly professed a disinclination to speculate on their fellow agents’ fate, then cast Helena a sidelong glance. 

“It’s not as if this is the first time, right? You probably won’t sleep anyway,” she added, alluding to the few times the two of them had shared a hotel room, if not the bed it had offered. Her casual acceptance of Helena’s disarrayed sleeping habits came from the same source that her silence at Helena picking at the food on her plate had stemmed from, Helena was sure. 

“Possibly,” she murmured absentmindedly, stepping past the settee to the windows, halfway glad that this room did not come with a balcony. For all that her eyes were falling onto different buildings here, the mind behind the eyes felt treacherously close to that of last night – pondering the dichotomy of having to wait to save the world, and shaken by a stranger’s accurate perception of her inner turmoil. 

They had saved the world, at cost of the stranger.

Myka extinguished the lights and stepped up beside her. “To better see,” she said by way of explanation. Helena made an indistinct sound at the back of her throat. The light had taken their reflections with it, and that was a thing to be graceful for. She did not want Myka to see how troubled her eyes were. 

They stood for what seemed the longest time, looking at the cathedral flooded with artificial light. Lost in determinedly-not-quite-thought, Helena was startled when she felt fingers touch her hand, curl around it, press almost painfully hard. 

“He said I was on a direct path to spending the rest of my life alone,” Myka said, voice thick with tears. She tugged at the hand she held until Helena, snapped completely out of her musings, turned to face her. “Among other things.”

 _And I was thinking only of my pain,_ Helena thought. Guilt flooded her, white-hot, and pooled in the cave of her stomach. “Myka…”

“I’m glad you’re here, Helena,” the taller woman said. Two tears spilled from her eyes as she blinked. “I’m so… _so_ glad you’re here.” She shook her head suddenly, stubbornly, and looked up at the ceiling, causing yet more tears to fall. “And I wish I knew you were staying.” 

They were standing close enough for Helena to have actually felt a dislodged tear hit her, and yet only their fingers were touching. Helena yearned to embrace the woman in front of her, yearned for that attempt at consolation with a force that surprised, even frightened her, and yet neither her brain nor her muscles seemed to have any idea how to set off the series of motions that would end with Myka in her arms. 

Then the fingers were gone, and Helena watched the hand that had held hers be pressed against lips that fought for breath underneath it. 

“You are not alone in that wish,” she said, trying to find words that would express her emotions appropriately. _As long as I have breath, you will not be alone._ She desperately wanted to say those words instead of the ones she had chosen, but how in the world could she even dare to think them – she who was sent away at the whim of Regents who had given the astrolabe into her custody but still did not seem to trust her completely (and how could she blame them), she who so rarely had the time to properly say goodbye, much less explain her absence, she who, time and again (and in such inconceivably hideous ways), had left Myka very much alone indeed.

It seemed they, too, had lost their ability for effortless banter. Even what she had once jokingly called ‘meeting at gunpoint’ had seemed easier than this charged situation they were finding themselves in. 

“I’ll take a shower, if you don’t mind,” Myka told the windows, and was gone before Helena could so much as nod.

~~~

_Night finds you almost a different creature, and, as expected, you don’t find rest. You have watched the city fall asleep, you have been well aware of Myka falling asleep, you suspect righteous people should not be awake at this time of night. The world seems to agree; you have not seen movement outside for a while. It makes judging how much time might have passed strangely difficult. Finally, though, you think it safe enough, and turn around._

_The room is lit quite brilliantly with the illuminations outside, bathing the sleeping figure on the bed in their mixture of greenish white and orange – the blue does not reach here. The colors are truly hideous to watch a sleeping beauty by, but that does not stop your breath from catching at the realization, the last in a long line of such, of just how much of a beauty Myka Bering is._

_It is easy to find her beautiful in daylight, strolling along some city’s street on the way to this museum or that private address. It is easy to find her beautiful in the soft light of Shelby bulbs. It is easy to find her beautiful when she loses herself in a book, or laughs – oh sweet angels, her laugh – or points a gun at someone (you). Your heart beats painfully hard at knowing full well how easy it is to find her beautiful in sleep, all flung limbs beneath tangled sheets, flushed face beneath tousled curls._

_No, it is not the first time that the two of you shared a room. It is, in fact, the fifth time, and for the fifth time, you sit down on the floor beside Myka Bering’s head and talk softly, of things you can’t find words for when daylight or duty make you a different creature._

_How you hate being called from Myka’s side for even a moment, much less a day or week or month. How things reel and stagger when she is not around to right them by simply being around. How you cling to the thought of her to keep your world from tilting._

_How you wished your daughter had met Myka. How you long to know whether the two of them would have ‘clicked’. How you are almost sure. How that rest of uncertainty claws at your heart._

_How you cannot bear the thought of how much Myka hurts even without a possessed agent, or a half-crazed (fully grief-mad) one, insisting on flinging yet more pain at her._

_How you would gladly give your life to spare Myka future grief, or erase past hurts._

_How your heart stops, utterly, truly stops, when you see grim, black-robed Death stretch out his bony fingers for Myka. How you fully intend to step into his path, no matter the cost._

_How it feels to know that the most lingering touches the two of you have shared so far are the one with which she pulled you away from the shattered illusion of having your daughter in your life once more, the one with which she curled your fingers around the grip of a pistol, and the one with which she established that you could not, in fact, share a touch at all._

_And when you finish laying your thoughts out for her sleeping eyes to be unaware of, all you are left with to say is her name, over and over, prayer, mantra, sura, hymn._


	15. Thread B: 9

“Okay, here’s the plan, H.G..” Claudia leaned across their breakfast table. “The address is across the river, and all I’ve learned about driving in Cologne says you shouldn’t do it. You alright with braving public transport?” she asked Helena, holding up a sheet of hotel stationery with scribbled timetables.

“Can’t be worse than Berlin,” the English agent shrugged, accepting and perusing the proffered instructions. 

“The train for Frankfurt leaves at twelve thirty-two,” Artie added, “just be sure to catch it.”

“Twelve thirty? Man, that’s four hours’ worth of shopping time!” Claudia squealed, punching Steve’s upper arm.

“If you have money left to shop with, maybe you should settle our bill.” Artie’s reply came lightning-fast, and just as quickly, Claudia ducked her head, grinning at him from beneath her lashes. 

“Aw, come on. If I buy you a new shirt to wear on the next date, dat okay?”

“Hey, and Jinksie,” Pete cut in from the other end of the table, an impressive array of tiny and emptied food containers in front of him, “they say Cologne is gayer than the Pope, so you could do some ‘shopping’ of your own.” 

Steve threw Helena’s half-eaten bun at him, then looked at her with puckered lips. “You were finished with that, anyway, weren’t you?”

She raised her eyebrows, unreasonably glad to be included in the banter. “It would appear that way.” 

“I’ll bring you a souvenir,” he grinned, then waved his hand, “not of the kind _he_ meant, of course.”

“I’ll come with you,” Myka said suddenly, rising from the table, and for a frozen second, Helena was quite certain she meant to accompany Steve. Then she felt fingers tug at her shoulder. “Come on. The sooner we’re done, the sooner the two of us can go looking for souvenirs of our own.”

~~~

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Helena said again, eyes riveted to the sign that identified the building as home of the ‘Kinder- und Jugendpädagogische Einrichtung der Stadt Köln’. She knew enough German to feel a petrifying suspicion tighten her chest. 

“Of course I am; look, the logo matches the acronym.” When Helena did not look at the proffered envelope, Myka looked at the other woman more closely. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”

“This is a municipal institution for children and teenagers,” Helena whispered tonelessly. “You don’t need to be Pete Lattimer to get a certain… premonition about why I was sent here.”

“Well, we won’t find out about that if we stay outside the doors,” Myka said, taking Helena’s hand and pulling her along as she went in. 

*Good morning,* the woman at the front desk greeted them. *How may I help you?*

*I have been asked to deliver this.* Helena could not believe she was this close to stammering. Inhaling sharply through her nose, she straightened and reached the letter across. 

*Thank you,* the woman said, taking the letter and turning it to look at the address given at the back. *From Frau Sperling, I see.* Her eyes held a hint of disapproval as she opened the envelope with, perhaps, a little more force than necessary. Then they widened at what fell out. *Oh…* she said, then pointed at Helena. *Stay a moment, please, Frau…?*

*Wel- Sander. Monika Sander.* Helena could feel Myka’s eyebrows rise, she was sure of it. She could but hope that Laura had given that name on whichever form it was that the receptionist had pulled from the envelope. 

*Just a moment, Frau Sander. I’ll be right back.*

Helena let out a long breath as she turned to Myka. She stuffed her hands into her pockets, produced the parody of a smile, and remembered that of all people, Myka Bering could see through every attempt of evasion Helena had ever tried. This one, too – hazel eyes regarded her with a quiet assurance of support, no matter what. It was a look that never failed to unsettle Helena for fear that the other woman would one day realize how little Helena deserved her faith.

*Frau Sander?* Helena turned towards the new, somewhat tentative voice, smile still plastered to her face. What she saw upon completion of her turn, however, caused the smile to slowly slide away.


	16. Trailer

“You what?!” 

Myka held the phone away from her ear, grimacing a little before repeating, patiently, “We need another ticket, Claudia.” 

~~~

“Artie, I’d thought I’d be the last person on Earth to ever be saying this, but we need to talk about this,” Claudia said, pinning the older agent with a stare.

“She’s right, you know,” Pete chimed in, drawing several pairs of surprised eyes. “What? We do! This is tearing us apart!”

~~~

“Leena?” Pete’s face was a mask of shocked disbelief at what he was seeing.


	17. Quick author's note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I saw that some of you subscribed to this story. That's a HUGE compliment and I would like to thank you and hug you and call you George (or whatever you prefer to be called in a bout of *squeeeee*). 
> 
> _However_ (to quote my beloved Data, or even Tuvok), I should like to point out that the sequel (and oh boy, is there a sequel) will not be posted as further chapters to _this_ story, but rather as a second piece in a (still-to-be-installed) series.
> 
> So if you want to make sure you'll be informed when it goes up, go to my profile (i.e. click on my username) and subscribe (top right corner of the screen) to me instead of to this story. 
> 
> Thanks heaps!

That said...

if anyone wants to beta aforementioned sequel, pleeeeeeeeeease say so. 

Cheers.


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